McCain: I’ve earned the right to screw the troops

The US Senate passed Jim Webb’s (D-VA) update of the GI Bill yesterday by a vote of 75 – 22. The Math will tell you that three senators did not cast a vote on this measure: one was Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), who was just this week diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor after suffering a seizure, one was Oklahoma’s own Tom Coburn (R)—and, honestly, who knows what’s going on inside his head—and the third? That would be presumptive Republican presidential nominee, part-time Arizona senator, and full-time asshole John W. McCain.

McCain—who, by the way, did you know, was a POW in Vietnam—was too busy insulting Ellen DeGeneres and attending two big-ticket Silicon Valley fundraisers to make it back to Washington to do his job vote. However, Johnny Mad Cow—who absolutely does NOT have anger-management problems, and I don’t give a FUCK who says otherwise!!!—still had time to dash off one of his patented vitriol-laced, uh, I mean, straight-talking missives to his likely opponent in November, Senator Barack Obama.

It is typical, but no less offensive that Senator Obama uses the Senate floor to take cheap shots at an opponent and easy advantage of an issue he has less than zero understanding of. Let me say first in response to Senator Obama, running for President is different than serving as President. The office comes with responsibilities so serious that the occupant can't always take the politically easy route without hurting the country he is sworn to defend. Unlike Senator Obama, my admiration, respect and deep gratitude for America's veterans is something more than a convenient campaign pledge. I think I have earned the right to make that claim.

. . . .

But I am running for the office of Commander-in-Chief. That is the highest privilege in this country, and it imposes the greatest responsibilities. It would be easier politically for me to have joined Senator Webb in offering his legislation. More importantly, I feel just as he does, that we owe veterans the respect and generosity of a great nation because no matter how generously we show our gratitude it will never compensate them fully for all the sacrifices they have borne on our behalf.

. . . .

I know that my friend and fellow veteran, Senator Jim Webb, an honorable man who takes his responsibility to veterans very seriously, has offered legislation with very generous benefits. I respect and admire his position, and I would never suggest that he has anything other than the best of intentions to honor the service of deserving veterans. Both Senator Webb and I are united in our deep appreciation for the men and women who risk their lives so that the rest of us may be secure in our freedom. And I take a backseat to no one in my affection, respect and devotion to veterans. And I will not accept from Senator Obama, who did not feel it was his responsibility to serve our country in uniform, any lectures on my regard for those who did.

Now, Mc—wait, excuse me one second, can I just say, What an A-Hole!—sorry, where was I? Oh, yes, now McCain not only doesn’t take a backseat to anyone on military issues, he doesn’t take any seat at all! McCain not only missed the GI Bill vote, and multiple other votes concerning military matters, he was also absent from Thursday’s confirmation hearings for Generals David Patraeus and Ray Odierno before the Senate Armed Services Committee—a committee of which McCain is Ranking Member!

Did McCain have nothing to ask of or say to the next head of CENTCOM? Did the highest ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee have no questions for the next guy to run the pig circus we call the war in Iraq?

But hey, OK, little John, you were busy with things that were more important to you—it’s just one day, right?

Not right.

It was just last February when McCain chose to skip a vote that could have provided additional assistance for a quarter-million disabled veterans. He apparently couldn’t squeeze it in, even though he was in DC at the time, on his way to speak at the ultra conservative CPAC conference.

And then there was last year, where, by May, McCain had missed 10 of the first 14 votes on the Iraq War. (There is a partial list of important votes that McCain missed or used to vote against aid for troops or veterans here.)

And don’t forget, I’m just talking about military matters, here. McCain has missed any number of important votes (like every important environmental vote this session).

But, credit where credit is due—McCain is right: running for president is different from being president. You see, running for president is something you choose to do. How you run your campaign, where you go, whose endorsements you seek, whose money you take, how much time you spend campaigning and fundraising, those are all choices you get to make. Running for office is not a job.

Being president, however, is a job. One to which you are elected, sure, but once sworn in, you do have an obligation to show up and do what is expected by your constituents.

Why, it’s kind of like being a senator! Yeah, that’s it, it’s like being senator of the whole country. And if that is the case, then it looks like Senator Obama has McCain beat—Obama showed up for the GI Bill vote, and most of the other important military votes this Congress. (Hell, Johnny, even Senator Clinton—who we all know needs to do as much campaigning and fundraising as she can these days—took the time on Thursday to both vote on the GI Bill and other Iraq-related measures and fulfill her duties as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee by sticking around to question Patraeus and Odierno.)

All of which leaves me wondering where McNasty gets off attacking Obama about responsibility. . . specifically about the responsibility to serve his country.

It seems McCain is now implying that you can only serve your country as a member of the military—ridiculous on its face, but let me make one more point.

Since just after the end of the Vietnam War, the United States has had an all-volunteer force. That means (unlike a job to which you are elected) you can choose whether or not to serve. Of course, there are circumstances that might arise that make it seem like it would be the duty of most patriotic Americans to enlist, but these are (and should be) rare.

Senator Obama is considerably younger than John McCain. Born in 1961, Obama would have been eligible to enlist starting in 1979, and would have been of prime service age (18 – 27) through the end of the Reagan Administration. What great causes, what threats to our democracy might have convinced a young man to give up college, law school, or his work with the urban poor to join the US military?

Lebanon? Grenada?

Bueller?

So what comparison is McCain seeking to draw here exactly? Is he really telling all of America that unless we have served in the military—maybe unless we’ve seen combat—we are not qualified to question candidate and/or President McCain? Not that there aren’t plenty of active and retired military personnel who have big problems with McCain, but really, if they’re the only ones that McCain will tolerate, then, uh, wow!

No wonder he likes to say that he’s running for “Commander-in-Chief”—which is not a real position, just a nice turn of phrase—“president” sounds just way too, you know, civilian.

The last eight years have been scary enough with a guy who once went AWOL using the authority of the presidency to politicize the military and then have it serve his partisan domestic agenda. And this decade has been more than sad enough because the result of that misuse is a military stressed to the breaking point—and countless men and women who have been killed, maimed, or just ill-served by a Republican government that will not pony up to really support our troops. But imagine a “commander” that won’t countenance the counsel of civilians and can’t be bothered to do the minimum required of him to care for his fellow servicemen and women.

Imagine a president that, by virtue of his experience, believes he has earned the right to discount everyone else’s.


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

Five years—what have we got?

It was March 19th, 2003, when George W. Bush let slip the dogs of war on Iraq. I seem to remember something about “Shock and Awe,” something about WMDs, something about being “welcomed as liberators” with candy and flowers, and something about the war paying for itself.

Ohhhhh Kayyyyyyyyyy. . . .

Well, five years and over one-half trillion dollars (and counting) later, what do we really have? This is just a sample.

Nearly 4,000 US troops killed in combat; over 29,000 wounded.
At least 145 deaths by suicide (thousands more have attempted suicide).
Over 500 amputees (not counting fingers and toes).
Over 7,500 with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
An estimated 28% of troops that see combat return with PTSD.
Upwards of 300,000 Iraq veterans are expected to develop some sort of mental health problem requiring treatment.
Divorces, spousal abuse, alcoholism and drug abuse—all on the rise in the veteran population.

(sources here, here, here, and here)


Somewhere between 600,000 and 1.2 million Iraqi civilian dead.
One in five Iraqis are considered displaced.
Four-and-a-half million Iraqis are uprooted.
Two-and-a-half million are displaced inside Iraq.
Two million Iraqi refugees are in neighboring countries.
The number of Iraqis seeking asylum is at an all-time high.

(sources here, here, and here)


Over 70% of Iraqi women say they don’t have enough to feed their family.
Two-thirds say that violence against women has increased in the last five years.
Over three-quarters say that girls in their family are not allowed to attend school.
Only about a quarter of Iraqi women are optimistic about the future.

(source)

But things are getting better, right? Let’s take a look at some of the latest news:

The death toll from a suicide bombing near the Shrine of Imam Hussein has risen above 50.

An epidemiologist estimates that Iraq (which had roughly the same size population as the greater New York metropolitan area when the war began) has suffered the equivalent of six 9/11 attacks per month.

The Iraqi National Museum—the one looted after the fall of Baghdad—is still closed, and will remain closed after it is renovated because of continued security fears.

The latest in a long list of conferences designed to reconcile Iraq’s warring political factions has begun to unravel before it even begins.

Top US commander in Iraq, Gen. David Patreus, says that the Iraqis have not taken advantage of the “surge,” and are not making “sufficient progress” toward national reconciliation.

VP Dick Cheney is in Iraq crafting a deal to guarantee that the US military is committed in Iraq beyond the end of his administration. (Without Congressional approval, such a deal would of course be illegal, as in, impeachable.)

Cheney and Bush’s good friend, John W. McCain (Asshole-AZ), is also in Iraq, routinely confusing Sunni and Shiite factions in the region while trying to stoke the fires for war with Iran. . . and, of course, promote another 95 years of Iraqi occupation.

Something to look forward to. . . as if looking back on the last five years weren’t depressing enough.


(cross-posted on The Seminal and Daily Kos)

Q.E.D.

I have always liked the P.J. O’Rourke quote about how “The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it.” Sadly, I now see a grotesque corollary unfolding in Iraq.

Basically, it goes like this: President Bush and his pro-war chorus have made a habit of late of warning us that if the US withdraws its troops from Iraq, a horrible bloodbath will ensue. . . and the administration is now doing everything they can to make sure that it happens.

I am reminded of this unfortunate parallel by recent revelations about the massive amounts of rifles and side arms quickly and recklessly distributed in Iraq on Gen. David Petraeus’s watch—and the extremely disturbing number of those weapons that have now gone missing.

It all began earlier this summer, with a General Accountability Office report that more than 110,000 AK-47 assault rifles, 80,000 Glock pistols, 135,000 pieces of body armor and 115,000 Kevlar helmets issued to Iraqi security forces could not be accounted for.

Later, Amnesty International researchers found that hundreds of thousands of U.S.-approved arms transfers from Bosnia-Herzegovina to Iraq - more than 90 tons of AK-47s - could also be missing

Those Iraqi security forces that are “losing” their weapons are predominantly Shiite; meanwhile, the US continues to aggressively arm Sunni groups that have purportedly vowed to use the weapons against what we call “Al-Qaeda” (or is it “Al-Qaeda in Iraq,” or just a whole lot of other hostile groups?). As I’ve mentioned before, those Sunnis now receiving US aid in places like Anbar have sworn allegiance to Coalition forces, not to the Iraqi government, and I’m sure that those same Sunnis are all too aware of the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Shiite militias in Baghdad and the south. As the Center for American Progress noted, this “strategy” is contributing to deteriorating security in Iraq: “the United States is arming up different sides in multiple civil wars that could turn even more vicious in the coming years.”

CAP’s “Strategic Reset” actually documents that the more the US equips and trains Iraqi security forces, the more violence there increases.

You’d think that somebody might notice.

Or, maybe they have. . . .

It is more than obvious at this point that the Bush plan for “victory” in Iraq is to pass the fiasco on to his successor and then spend the next several election cycles criticizing the Democrats for “losing” Iraq. The administration and its handpicked yes-men in the field will try to play prevent defense until January of 2009, keeping something between 100,000 and 140,000 troops in country, as rotations will allow. Meanwhile, Bush, Cheney, their families, and cronies will continue to reap the financial rewards of arms trafficking, privatized security and support, and regional (not national) oil deals, all at the expense of Iraqi unity (such that it is), regional security, and civilian safety.

When the next president redeploys US forces out of Iraq—and the next president will have to do this due to the depleted readiness of our military and reserves, and the untenable economic and diplomatic costs of this situation—there will, by many assessments, be some terrible consequences in some parts of the country (not that things are not thoroughly terrible now). But, how terrible things will get is still an open question.

If the situation in Iraq were to get precipitously worse when a Democratic president and Congress tries disengage, it could actually help Republicans (at least in their view and the view of likeminded media outlets) make their argument that their plan—whatever the hell that was—was actually superior to that of the Democrats. And if all of this comes to pass, you will suddenly see Republicans, who don’t really want Iraq to be a factor in the coming election cycle, suddenly revive the issue for future cycles, and wave the bloody shirt at the Democrats and the country. . . and the bloodier the shirt, the better.

After all, Republicans have something to prove.


(cross-posted to Daily Kos)

Was Warner tipped off?

Does anybody else find this odd? Last month, Sen. John Warner (R-VA) made a big show of “breaking” with the president by calling for a token reduction in the number of US troops serving in Iraq by Christmas:

I say to the President, respectfully, pick whatever number you wish. You do not want to lose the momentum. But certainly, in the 160,000 plus — say 5,000 — could begin to redeploy and be home to their families and loved ones no later than Christmas of this year.

Despite the couched request and the very small number, Warner’s statement was supposed to be a big deal—as if this grand old man of the Senate was laying down a condition for continued support from Republicans in his sphere.

Well, at the start of the week, Gen. David Petraeus made a remarkably similar sounding recommendation, and Thursday night (shock! awe!), Decider-in-Chief Bush “decided” to take the general’s “advice”:

Because of this success, General Petraeus believes we have now reached the point where we can maintain our security gains with fewer American forces. He has recommended that we not replace about 2,200 Marines scheduled to leave Anbar province later this month; in addition, he says it will soon be possible to bring home an Army combat brigade; for a total force reduction of 5,700 troops by Christmas.

Leaving aside that “success” in Anbar, you could say that Warner knew the 5,000 number was a safe bet because that many troops were due to rotate out anyway. That is almost true, but they were not due to leave before Christmas. Most of what I have read has stated that a reduction in the overall numbers in Iraq would not have to happen due to the 15-month rotation deadline until April—so, while this is not a real “withdrawal” (the president never used that word in his speech, by the way), it is a slightly accelerated rotation schedule.

Since we know that Gen. Petraeus was coordinating with the White House on his “recommendations” for weeks before the September 10 testimony, is it possible that the administration also coordinated with Sen. Warner?

Would you change your mind if I told you that the Senator met with White House “war czar” Gen. Doug Lute on the same day that he delivered his remarks about a token Christmas withdrawal?

I know that it was leaked that administration officials reached out to Warner to get him to “clarify” his remarks, and I know that the Virginia Senator came under some fire from the super-wingnutty members of his caucus, but the former Mr. Liz Taylor’s wobbles have always been more word than deed (Warner has never cast a vote against Bush’s Iraq war agenda), and the number and timing are just too close.

Since even the White House and the establishment media each freely admit that the President’s “strategy” is designed to keep wobbly Republicans in the stay-the-course camp, it seems very possible to me that part of this strategy is to cement Republican support by coordinating with a purported senior wobbler.

Strange fruit

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Today’s LA Times’ top of the page news analysis has the basic “strategy” of the stay-the-course talk you are hearing this week from Gen. David Petraeus and his White House puppet masters pretty much pegged:

The talk in Washington on Monday was all about troop reductions, yet it also brought into sharp focus President Bush's plans to end his term with a strong U.S. military presence in Iraq, and to leave tough decisions about ending the unpopular war to his successor.

The plans outlined by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, would retain a large force in the country -- perhaps more than 100,000 troops -- when the time comes for Bush to move out of the White House in January 2009.

And the NY Times editorial board was none too impressed, either:

For months, President Bush has been promising an honest accounting of the situation in Iraq, a fresh look at the war strategy and a new plan for how to extricate the United States from the death spiral of the Iraqi civil war. The nation got none of that yesterday from the Congressional testimony by Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. It got more excuses for delaying serious decisions for many more months, keeping the war going into 2008 and probably well beyond.

. . . .

The headline out of General Petraeus’s testimony was a prediction that the United States should be able to reduce its forces from 160,000 to 130,000 by next summer. That sounds like a big number, but it would only bring American troops to the level that were in Iraq when Mr. Bush announced his “surge” last January. And it’s the rough equivalent of dropping an object and taking credit for gravity.

That’s because US military forces cannot sustain current levels in Iraq past early Spring without precipitously undermining the capabilities of the Army and Marines. By ‘round about the time of the Republican National Convention next Summer, US troop levels in Iraq will roughly resemble the pre-2007 escalation totals—and Republican candidates up and down the ticket will claim that President Bush has brought us closer to “victory” in Iraq.

While several other editorials also recognize this “kick the can” strategy, it is a much-touted tactic—the arming of Sunni warlords in Anbar Province (which, in truth, started months before Bush announced his “surge”—and was actually proposed by the Sunnis three years before that)—that is providing the White House and wingnuts, alike, with the political cover necessary to keep WINOs (wobblers in name only) and the beltway pundit class in line.

Well, almost. Take a gander at noted conservative beltway insider George Will’s Washington Post column. Will is also unambiguously unimpressed with the Bush administration’s September policy roll-out, but—his declaration of improving security aside (how can it be “real” if it is mismeasured?)—it is his assessment of what lies beneath this “improvement” that bears special attention:

First, measuring sectarian violence is problematic: The Post reports that a body with a bullet hole in the front of the skull is considered a victim of criminality; a hole in the back of the skull is evidence of sectarian violence. But even if violence is declining, that might be partly because violent sectarian cleansing has separated Sunni and Shiite communities. This homogenization of hostile factions -- trained and armed by U.S. forces -- may bear poisonous fruit in a full-blown civil war.

Got that? Homogenized hostile factions “trained and armed by US forces” resulting in a “full-blown civil war.”

I know what you’re thinking—there is already a full-blown civil war playing out daily in Iraq—but think a bit more: imagine a full-blown civil war with each faction trained and armed by the US.

If Ambassador Ryan Crocker and his White House pals get their way, you won’t have to imagine too hard.

You heard on Monday, and will hear more and more in coming days, about the new new administration “strategy” (which, again, is really a tactic) of “bottom up” security in Iraq—and that “bottom up” tactic means arming sectarian and ethnic factions all across Iraq, just like the US military did in Anbar.

It is important now to note that the “23 tribes”—as administration hacks call them—that are now supposedly fighting alongside US troops in Anbar Province to help stamp out the nefarious forces we feel the political need to call “al-Qaeda in Iraq” have sworn allegiance to US military commanders, and not to any Iraqi national government. That there is no grand national “strategy” that can work with this Anbar tactic is evident on its face, but, furthermore, we must ask: what happens when this tactic begins to fail?

I say “when” and not “if” because I would like to go on record right now and say it will, in the long run, fail. It will fail if your goal is to build a strong, multi-ethnic, cross-sectarian government in Iraq; it will fail if your goal is to provide predictable and long-running security for US occupying forces.

Perhaps you are now wondering what could possibly make me so pessimistic after four-and-a-half years of Bush’s “victory strategy,” so, let me explain. If Ambassador Crocker’s proposal to expand the “bottom up” plan is to come to fruition, then (and this was more than implied) the US will have to also arm and train—and bribe—Shiite militias (or “tribes,” if you must) so that they, too, won’t try to kill Americans. The question of which Shiite faction we will choose to arm notwithstanding, what will the Sunni minority think when larger Shiite populations get even more arms and money to fight those that they (the Shiites) call enemies? Sooner or later, one faction or another will decide that some other group is getting a dangerously unfair slice of America’s largesse, and then, all bets are off.

Except my bet that this latest strategic tactic will be a bloody failure.

And the bet that it will be up to the next administration to try to mop up Bush’s bloody mess.

As I observed exactly three months ago, you reap what you sow. As George Will now knows, like Abel Meeropol did long ago, our harvest will be a strange, bitter, and shameful one.

(cross-posted to Daily Kos; thoughts on the anniversary of 9/11 over on guy2k)